Monthly Archives: September 2011

Tommy Wells to Address MLK Library Rally This Sunday Oct 2

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For Immediate Release — Washington, DC

A Rally will take place at the MLK Library on Sunday October 2, at 12:30 PM, to protest the elimination of Sunday hours at the central library – the only District library open on Sundays.

Councilmember Tommy Wells will speak at 1 PM. Wells was recently designated Chair of the DC Council Committee on Libraries, Parks, Recreation and Planning.

At a breakfast with DC City Council today, Mayor Vincent Gray remarked that “everyone has to sustain cuts.”  Wells raised questions, however, when $700,000 for the Washington Economic Partnership came under discussion. The Economic Partnership is a nonprofit organization that  “promotes business opportunity, attraction, and retention,” according to the organization’s mission statement.

Library officials have said it would require only $312,000 to maintain Sunday hours at MLK for all of FY2012.

Ironically, at their Board meeting last Wednesday, Library Trustees announced a $120,000 expenditure to hire the Urban Land Institute to make recommendations about the future of the MLK Library.  The city has long been interested in selling the Mies van der Rohe designed building, now landmarked.

MLK has been the only library open on Sunday in the entire District system.  In 2009, then-Mayor Adrian Fenty cut Sunday hours at all 24 branch libraries, but officials promised to keep MLK open to for use by library patrons from across the city.  The central library is served by all 5 Metro lines and numerous bus routes.

Sunday is the busiest day per hour open and is considered the most important day for homework help.

The Rally is being organized by the Library Renaissance Project.

 

Tommy Wells Vows to Save Sunday Hours for MLK Library

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For Immediate Release — Deanwood, Washington, DC

Addressing the Board of Library Trustees meeting at the new Deanwood Library last night, Councilmember Tommy Wells (Ward 6) said he strongly supported keeping the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Library open on Sundays, “and will do everything in my power to get the $320,000 needed.”

The MLK Library is scheduled to be closed on Sundays in FY2012, which begins October 1, 2011. Wells was recently appointed chairman of the Library, Parks, Recreation and Planning Committee, after budget hearings were concluded.

“How encouraging that the new chair of the Library Committee is standing up so forcefully for the Library,” commented Wendy Blair, of Ward 6, President of the Literary Friends of the DC Public Library.

Marcia Carter, of the Friends of the Georgetown Library said “closing MLK on Sundays would be tragic — not only for its effect on the general public — but because of the many special needs students who rely on services available only at MLK.”

Susan Haight, President of the Federation of Friends of the DC Public Library and also of the West End Library branch summed up, “We look forward to working with Councilman Wells, Mayor Gray, the CFO, Library Trustees and Chief Librarian Ginnie Cooper to make this happen by Oct 1, and reversing the current direction.”